I am not sure how waiting would make the situation any different. There woudl still be one lunch short. When your friend ate really wouldn't alter that. It seems like the person complaining expected friend to be the one to give up hers or split? That really seems to be the only reason to care.

It was like “boo hoo, the two of us only had half a bag of chips, half a sub sandwich, half a cookie, and you got a whole one and ate some of it by yourself at your desk!” However, in the 20 minutes friend was on the phone, the missing lunch could probably have been delivered along with some extra free cookies for good business. But I guess no one bothered to call.

I wonder why nobody called for the missing lunch. The last sentence of paragraoh 3 says that each person paid for his or her own. That means that those who got half paid for a full lunch. Why didn't someone fix that?

Here's what's really going on, I suspect: the complainers are upset that they had to go to the forced team lunch while your friend (for legitimate business reasons) wasn't stuck there. And because it was a legitimate business reason, they can't really complain about that, hence the annoyance is bleeding over to something else.

I think Yvaine hit it right on the head here.

POD. It's not like friend simply took her lunch and went back to her desk, to avoid being with the rest of the office. She did have a legitimate reason, a business call, which came in when she wasn't quite expecting it. And if she didn't know how long it would take, I don't see any issue with her bringing her lunch back, so she could eat while she took care of business.

And, since everyone paid for their own lunch, I'm guessing each ordered what they wanted, rather than AD simply ordering 10 lunches, 3 turkey, 3 ham, etc. and letting everyone choose what they wanted. So friend took the lunch SHE chose, so how was she to know that they were one short.

AD should have made sure it was all therre at the time of delivery, and if not, called and had another one sent over quickly.

I wonder if that person thought that the friend should have noticed that they were one short and stayed to figure out how the group would handle splitting the lunch boxes.

If my friends and I ordered out and received one less item than we needed, I would think that a person was rude if they just grabbed theirs and started to eat before we could figure out what to do about it. That said, if this is the case, I think the person was still out of line for calling someone out on it when there was a reasonable chance that the friend had no idea that they were one short.

I don't think the friend was rude to start eating her lunch while at her desk. However I'm curious about what prompted her to take her lunch with her instead of leaving it the break room since she was aware the idea was for everyone to eat their lunch together.

I also was curious about this. The way she told it, she could see/hear when the lunches were being put in the conference room and people started to gather there. She was waiting on a call, but assumed it would come later in the afternoon. But as she walked towards the conference room, the front desk secretary said “It’s X on the phone for you”. She hurried to get her box lunch, and took it to her desk. The call turned out to take longer than anticipated.

I asked “But if you hadn’t gotten the call, would you have still taken the lunch to your desk?”

She said “No. Although I wasn’t crazy about the “let’s all eat together” thing, I would have eaten with everyone else.”

If she had stayed at her desk I think that would have been rude (or at least awkward), but she did return to the conference room.

I think the two complaints are separate but compounded by each situation. The missing lunch would have been an issue no matter where friend ate her lunch. But what her co-workers observed was her hurrying into the conference room, grabbing a lunch and leaving. Though a couple people might have heard her being called to the phone not everyone could be aware. I think it might also be likely someone arrived and asked "where's friend" and someone else responded she took her lunch back to her desk.

I don't think friend was rude but I can understand why some co- workers might perceive it that way.

I know this is going to sound crazy, but is it possible that the AD ordered one lunch short on purpose? Like a social experiment or team-building exercise? I.E. "Your coworker is going through adversity, you can do something to alleviate that situation. What do you do?"

I wonder if that person thought that the friend should have noticed that they were one short and stayed to figure out how the group would handle splitting the lunch boxes.

If my friends and I ordered out and received one less item than we needed, I would think that a person was rude if they just grabbed theirs and started to eat before we could figure out what to do about it. That said, if this is the case, I think the person was still out of line for calling someone out on it when there was a reasonable chance that the friend had no idea that they were one short.

I'm guessing they didn't notice since each person ordered waht they wanted. I know i would have simply looked for my name or my order, and not thought to count how many lunches were actually delivered. I know wehre I work we do that; no one person doles out the food; its put on a table, and everyone takes their own order, so it might not have come to light until that happened that someone's was missing.

But I still don't get why no one called to have the missing lunch sent; presuming all 10 were paid for.

I think they were annoyed because if she hadn't taken the lunch to her desk, she would have been the one without. They could have said "Oh, we thought you already got yours. Too bad, so sad."

This is exactly what I was wondering about. Had she not taken a lunch, when she got off her phone call, your friend would have returned to the conference room only to find that there was no lunch waiting for her, right?

In any case, the AD really messed up on a lot of levels from what I can see. First, if she wants to have a group lunch in the conference room, then she or the company should foot the bill. The idea of my boss dictating to me where I am to buy my lunch today and where I am to eat it is abhorent to me. I usually bring my lunch or go out, as in, out, away from the office. Sometimes I run errands at lunchtime. So in this situation, am I supposed to forgo all that? In my office, the management buys lunch for the whole office occasionally and it's just set up in the kitchen and people help themselves. No one is told they have to eat it and no one is told they have to sit in a particular room for lunch! The only exception to this is if it's a business meeting which is taking place over the lunch hour. But again, either the company is buying or everyone is free to bring in their own lunch (from home or sandwich shop or wherever).

And as PPs mentioned, since the AD ordered it all and collected the money and paid, it was completely her responsibility to make sure that at least the right number of meals were delivered.